The present invention relates to apparatus henceforth called the ash can monitor, which provides fissile and/or fertile material accountability measurements of the output of an incinerator. The ash can monitor disclosed herein is intended to measure the fissile/fertile material content of incinerator ash which is deposited in containers after leaving an incinerator such as described in a copending application Ser. No. 526,578 filed on Aug. 26, 1983 and assigned to the same assignee as this application.
The maintenance of records related to the quantity of fissile/fertile material is necessary to the monitoring of such materials as a precaution against such material being diverted to unauthorized use. The present invention is concerned with the monitoring of the quantities of fissile/fertile materials recovered from the incineration of contaminated matter.
It is also important to monitor the flow of input and output fissile material through the incineration process to guard against accidental nuclear criticality. This device provides the output measurement whereas a device described in application Ser. No. 526,578 provides the input fissile material measurement.
It is an object of this invention to utilize apparatus to assay fissile/fertile material contained in ash resulting from incineration of contaminated materials, where such ash is obtained from an incinerator output and deposited in a container such as a cylindrical container (can), adapted for use with the specific embodiment herein disclosed.
It is a further object of the invention to utilize apparatus in a diverse system for confirming a primary assay of fissile/fertile material contained in the ash obtained from an incinerator output and deposited in a cylindrical container.